2012 NFL Fantasy Football Week 13: Flex Play Rankings/Projections

The Broncos threw us a curveball on Sunday as we found out that Knowshon Moreno, not rookie Ronnie Hillman, would be the starter against Kansas City. Talk throughout the week made it seem like Denver would use a three-back committee with Moreno, Hillman and Lance Ball, but that strategy proved to be false when you look at the snap-count distribution throughout the game.

Hillman played all of seven snaps, and Ball only played one. Moreno saw a feature-back workload with 55 snaps, carrying the football 20 times for 85 yards and having four receptions for 26 yards in the passing game.

Going back to watch the coaches film on GameRewind, I liked what Moreno brought to the Broncos' offense overall. While Moreno still stutters at times in the hole (usually when a linebacker or safety comes up to fill the lane that he was supposed to run through), he is showing good effort on the plays where he is decisive, and that happened more often than not last week.

Prior to a few negative rushes at the end of the game to set up a field goal, Moreno only had one negative play on the day, which is a testament to the blocking by the offensive line and Moreno’s running.

What stood out most to me had to be the final drive of the game that put the victory away. The Broncos' two previous drives leading up to that point in the game were three-and-outs, as they tried to move the football via the passing game.

On the final drive, they road Moreno, and he delivered with a few big runs that helped set Peyton Manning up for a long completion to Demaryius Thomas, which just about iced the game. Expect Moreno to continue to be the main option in the Broncos running game, and while he may have some problems breaking lose for a big day this week against the Buccaneers, next week could be a RB1 performance against the Raiders' defense.